


hell is a hot brew

by theflyingpeach



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: ????? i guess i should tag that lol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Blood and Violence, Coffee Shops, Dragons, Explicit Language, Happy Ending, Hell & Other Fun Places, LOL but not really, Light Angst, M/M, Nudity, Sexual Content, Vampires, dante's inferno, i mean it's mentioned not graphic tho, i went off the rails and i apologize, it might not seem like it at first...but that's what this is, kissing :), listen there is no sex in this fic but it's NSFW, simon is under the ignorant and very false illusion that customer service is a simple task, this is a coffee shop au, this is weird sorry i am not capable of a normal coffee shop au, tw: customer service
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:35:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25420990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theflyingpeach/pseuds/theflyingpeach
Summary: Lightning strikes over the small building.A coffee shop?-Simon is on a journey from Heaven to Hell and back again-- literally. He's not sure how he got here and he's NEVER worked in customer service, but he's figuring it out. (And finding love along the way.)
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	hell is a hot brew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unenthusiastic_mermaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unenthusiastic_mermaid/gifts).



> this is my gift fic for Unenthusiastic_mermaid for the c/o gift exchange. I was given the prompt: a coffee shop au with things involving Simon's wings and tail...and some fluff (:
> 
> so veryvery sorry this is late! this chapter consisted of many rewrites. hope you enjoy <3
> 
> -
> 
> thank you clev for the many, many late nights you stayed up letting me bounce ideas off of you & for your wonderful suggestions, encouragement and endless kind words. thank you caity and jay for rooting for me and always offering your help and support xoxoxo <333

"...and because of your crimes I'll be sentencing you to 4,576,893,237 eternities in _Hell."_

That's bull shit.

"But what did I _do?"_

Phillip rolls it's ten thousand eyes at me.

"All sinners are well aware of their crimes, _reptile_." Pisser, I'm not a reptile. "Anyway, self-control is something you never took the time to learn, which is a requirement to enter the Heavenly Kingdom."

Jesus Christ, are angels always such massive dicks? 

I grunt.

I _have_ self-control. I haven't bent this prick's rings in half yet. All it's done since I got here is insult me.

All of Phillip's eyes focus on me. Like it heard me.

I cross my arms and lift my chin to it. _Good._

Phillip squints. I squint back.

It's two golden rings start doing a wobbly rolling motion.

_Hummmmmm._

What…?

A sweet and savory smelling cloud wafts past Phillip and towards me, dissipating in front of my face. An overwhelming ache pierces my stomach.

_Oh, Hell's Bells._

I've hardly noticed I'm moving until I float past Phillip.

A feast hovers beyond the pearly gates Phillip is guarding. A toppling mountain of roast beef, sweet tarts, plump grapes, melting truffles… all stuff from the shop windows I crept past in the night back on Earth. 

_That's temptation._

The gates click, then slowly creak open.

_Every forbidden delight I'd only ever_ dreamed _of devouring._

"Don't you want to have a sample?" Phillip whispers.

My gut throbs.

"Can I?"

"I don't know, _can you?"_ The way it says that makes me doubt it, but I feel a tug in my stomach like I'm being pulled towards the food.

_The meat is still sizzling…_

I reach forward. My fingers brush against a split fig. _I've never eaten anything this fresh._

I grab it.

And then my hand falls from my wrist, dropping into a pile of potatoes.

_My fucking hand is severed._

I don't feel anything in my arm.

"Like I said," Phillip's voice echoes behind me, "self-control. Now you're definitely going _down."_

The food molds rapidly, rotting until it's dust. 

The gates slam shut.

_That mother fu—_

"Mother fucker, you tricked me!" I shout, whipping around just in time to see the word BURN in large letters across the sky. 

Phillip is gone, so is everything else.

The clouds beneath me part and I go plummeting.

—

I crash into a pile of bones. 

They snap around and under me. I see stars, my vision going spotty and dark. It's a full minute before I realize I'm in pain.

_Fuck._

My wings are strained, pinned and bent the wrong way. I try shaking them, only to hear another snap, and then a rip, and then they won't move at all. 

_Double fuck._

A dull burn settles over my body. I blink over and over, squeezing my eyes shut tight, trying to clear my vision. 

_One, two, three…_ I slow my breathing.

I open my eyes. At first, I think I’m looking at blood, but then I notice grey clouds. The sky is red. 

_If I could just sit up…_

The bones slide under me as I push myself up on one arm. My other arm is twisted funny. Limp. Some of my scales are missing in chunks. A femur is sticking up through my thigh, but I can't tell if it's my own.

I press my palm to it. 

_Not my own—_

And shout.

_But hurts like a bitch._

My tail jerks. It's stuck, but at least it works.

CRUNCH 

At first I think I broke something else, until I realize I didn't feel anything.

CRUNCH CRUNCH 

Oh.

That's not me.

I look up. 

A giant beefy looking green-skinned bloke in an executioner mask is coming at me from the side.

_Shit—_

I inhale deep and huff, but nothing happens. The fire inside me is flat. I don't have time to think about what that means. He's closing in.

_I need a weapon._

I twist and grab the closest thing to me— a skull — and smash it over his knuckles just as he wraps his hand around my dead arm. He bellows, making everything inside me vibrate, and then I'm airborne. I smack into a boulder before I hit the ground. I think if everything else in me weren't already broken it might've hurt worse.

"Fucking brat!" He shouts from behind me. 

I look over my shoulder. He's muttering to himself and shaking his hand out. He's not looking this way.

I scan the area. 

There's a river of lava flowing nearby. It's close enough that I think I can crawl over and slip in, catch the current. Cauterize my wounds.

_Deep breath._

I push myself forward on my stomach and start to crawl. A jolt of pain shoots up the left side of my body. I shove my face into my elbow to stifle a groan. 

I look back. My leg with the bone jammed through it's caught on a rock. Further away the executioner has turned and spotted me.

We stare at each other.

_Shit._

He starts moving towards me. He's at least seven heads taller than me and nearly naked— he’s only wearing a pair of tiny black briefs. Lots of soft spots exposed.

_I can't get my leg loose, but..._

I grit my teeth and slam my fist down on the femur. The skin around it tears down to my knee, but the bone snaps in half, sharp and splintered. Now I've got a shiv.

_Score._

"Woah! Hey!" The guy shouts. He stops midway and puts his hands up. "Chill out, little lizard."

"I'm not a lizard," I growl. My snaps at him. He rolls his eyes.

"Dragons, lizards, same family."

I think I split my head. I taste blood.

"What do you want?" I spit.

"To give you the grand tour, of course." He props his hands on his hips. There's two of him.

_Grand tour?_

"Of what?"

"Why the Great Hades, _of course._ Or did you forget what comes after Heaven?"

Oh. Huh. Yeah. I forgot.

"Hell has a welcoming committee?" I ask.

"Eh, less of a committee, more of just...me." He says. He waves a hand like he's dusting something in the air away. "Now come on, get up. We're on a schedule."

I want to ask him if he's daft— I'm clearly incapacitated— but then my wings unfurl of their accord and spread wide. Green man focuses back into one body.

_Woah._

I give them a good shake. Fuck, that feels good. I twist around to the rest of my body with ease. _Everything_ is healed. My scales have grown back, no bones protruding. 

_I wonder if—_

I push deep from within my chest. 

_Still no fire._

"I'm Jeff." He says. He's looming over me now. He offers me his hand.

"Simon," I say, taking it and pulling myself up.

It's quiet for a minute.

"You know, you were late getting here," Jeff says. "You argued with Saint Peter, didn't you?"

Peter? I've seen Jeff and— _Oh. Phillip._ Fuck Phillip, Peter, whatever. They started it.

I cross my arms. "No." 

"Right." He says. He nods his head and claps my shoulder. "Peter's an asshole, anyway."

I snort.

Jeff might be alright.

—

This tour is taking for- _fucking_ -ever.

Or, well, right now we're at the 97-year mark, according to Jeff. He says we left Limbo around a year ago. And honestly? Thank fuck. That place was depressing as, well…

Hell.

_"I didn't even think this place was real."_ I'd said to Jeff at the beginning of our trip. 

We'd just broached the 'official' entrance: an ornate black picket fence with a small red sign hanging from the front of it that reads 'HOME IS WHERE THE HEART ACHES'. 

A tiny three-headed puppy playing nearby ran up to greet me.

_"The inferno only exists if you think you deserve it."_

_"What?"_

_"You said you didn't think the Underworld was real.”_

_“Oh. Right.”_

I haven't thought about it since. 

Anyway, everything here _feels_ real. Sometimes _more_ real than before— before whatever happened to me. I guess I died somehow, I mean I had to have, to have ended up here. The heat, the pain...it makes me wonder if it can happen again. Death. It felt close like a close call in Limbo. That place nearly sucked the life out of me. (My scales even pruned up.)

Jeff said that was to blend in; that wandering souls can sense the 'direction bound' and that they try latching on as means to escape. (Which didn't really make sense to me. We just left once we got to the other side.) (He says no one is actually looking for an exit, as much they moan.)

Limbo is barren, flat, and grey. _Everything_ is grey. Grey sand, grey skies, grey static on the screens of old cracked tellies. There are lots of broken electronics there; lots of things with no use. I guess that makes sense. The souls there can't see anything. They pass through each other, eyes white and empty.

Jeff says they look like that because they're stuck in a place they can never reach. Haunted by a life unfolding in their eyes that they can never be a part of.

_I know what that's like._

I remember sitting on the highest hilltop and looking down over the city. Hearing people happy, sad, angry. Together.

_Nothing to do. Just me and the trees._

Anything seems better than floating around aimlessly in a dust bowl, even current circumstances. 

In the past year, all I've seen are endless miles of black dirt and red skies. Sometimes a large rodent runs by. A scream or two sounds off from somewhere in the distance.

It's not that exciting, but at least we're headed somewhere. And Jeff is here. Most of the time is passed with stories from him...which I've started ignoring. (How does someone never run out of shit to say after almost a hundred years?)

He's currently on his fourth rehash of last decades company cookout.

"—and that's when Mammon said, 'I bet Bee wouldn't even _notice'_. So guess what Asmodeus did?" He nudges me with his elbow. "Go on, guess."

_He trades all the brats out for green dildos._

I shrug.

"He threw out all the brats and stuck green dildos in the buns," He throws his head back and laughs. "Mamo was right! Beelzebub, that son of a bitch, ate every single one without battin' an eye. He didn't even catch on until later when he clogged the toilet."

My stomach growls.

_I_ might eat dildo at this point.

The hunger hasn't left me since Heaven. I've kind of gotten used to the constant twinge in my belly, but every time Jeff brings up a stupid cookout story I feel like I'm gonna lose my mind.

_"Can you drop the food talk?"_ I'd snapped after the second time. _"Or take me somewhere to eat?"_

_"Why? You hungry?"_

My stomach gurgled. 

_"Oh. You are."_ Jeff's eyes went wide. _"So that's what you got stuck with."_

_"What do you mean?"_

He’d looked at me sideways.

_"We get stuck with what ails us most."_

_"...so there’s nothing here to eat?"_

_"No, Simon. Nothing here to fill you up."_

He hasn't exactly kept talking about food, but even a rubber prick on a bun sounds good at this point.

I'm just glad my legs don't ache. I can still fly, but when I’d tried hovering for a bit Jeff grabbed my ankle and tugged me back down.

_"If I gotta walk you gotta walk."_

_"Do you always walk? Can't you teleport or something?"_

_"I have to give all tours on foot."_

Must be why he has such great calves. I wonder if that's his punishment. (Being a tour guide, not the calves.)

I'm just about to ask when—

A slow rumble rolls through the ground. Jeff stops walking.

My wings lift me on instinct. Jeff doesn't try to stop me. "What is that?" I ask.

A loud burp breaks the ground, cracking it in every direction.

Silence.

Jeff hasn't answered me. "Jeff—"

And then it's like a bomb goes off beneath us. 

I swoop to Jeff and pull him to my chest, shielding him with my wings. Rubble showers down on us. 

_It reminds me of the summer when they found my mountain._

My ears are ringing. I squeeze Jeff. He lets me.

_They had rocks. They had firecrackers._

I want to get us away, but he's too big to lift. I can barely get my wings all the way around him.

_I had fire._

My head starts to spin. I tilt sideways. 

_Oh no._

Jeff reaches up and cups his hands around my ears. Everything goes quiet. 

I try thinking about the cool stone in my den, how it felt to lay against it. Sometimes the mountain would shake, but the insides never cracked. It feels weird not having those walls around me. I'm completely open.

My chest tightens.

_Not working._

I focus on Jeff's breathing. I count it to eighty. He's rubbing at my temples.

My head clears.

The tremors have stopped. I open my eyes. The world has gone dark inside my wings. 

Nothing happens. 

Jeff shifts in my hold, stops petting me. “As cozy as this is, you can let go.”

I ignore him, straining my ears for...something. Anything.

_There's always something—_

I feel the pulsing around us before I hear it. 

Slow and quiet, and then all at once inside my head and body. Rhythmic thumping echoes in the air. Music.

"Relax, Prince Charming," Jeff says. He shoves out of my hold and points over my shoulder.

_Huh?_

Through the dust settling, I see a massive dick, as large as a skyscraper, standing erect from the ground and curved towards the sky. Pulsating bollocks rest around the base, heaving up and down in time with the beat of the music. 

No, not bollocks. _Those can't be what I think they are._

I dust my hand through the dirt still hanging in the air. 

_It is._

Not bollocks. _Tits._

A giant prick with tits for balls.

My stomach flips.

_Confusing._

"Come on," Jeff yells over his shoulder, already walking towards it.

—

I’m simmering in a way I never have before, sweating through my scales. Itchy and wet in every crevice. 

It happened as soon as I stepped inside.

_“Lust,”_ Jeff said, the words sliding between his lips in a cloud of pink smoke.

It’s _all_ pink and dreamy and hazy.

Stages with poles line the walls of the room, decked in velvet and silk. Dancers, naked and shiny, twirl around on them, slow and smooth. 

My heart is pounding. 

I want to look anywhere else, but it's happening everywhere: Bodies pressed tight and rolling against each other. Limbs tangled. Lips swollen. 

I realize what I thought was music outside is just them— their moaning. 

My neck is hot. I duck my head and squeeze my eyes shut.

_I…_

The air is musky and humid. It settles over me like a heavy blanket in the summer. 

_I'm..._

I’m panting. 

_I'm so..._

My stomach burns, lurches into my throat.

_I'm so hungry._

I feel a touch on my arm and jump. 

“Cool get up.” A woman hisses. I open my eyes. A pink-haired Vixen is standing close to me, pushing her body into my side. She drags her claws up my shoulder and onto my wings, leaving a trail of glitter each place she touches.

_I'm so hungry it hurts._

“Thanks,” I manage around the knot in my throat. 

Jeff is across the room, talking to some pretty bloke with nice lips. He smiles at me over Jeff’s shoulder. My wings flutter.

_My cave was hollow, the woods echoed. Until—_

“Basilisk," The Vixen presses her lips to the back of my neck. "Never had one before.” 

My breath catches. 

_Branches snapping. "Hello?"_

The man talking to Jeff is staring. He grins and shows me a mouth full of razor-like teeth.

_I thought I was starving._

_I was._

_I am._

The Vixen runs her hands down my chest from behind. 

_I'm starving._

Her touch prickles, beginning to feel like needles. My tail curls around my own leg.

_Just not for this._

The man dips his lashes and blows a kiss. 

Jeff turns around.

“Oh, for fucks sake!” He shouts. “I can’t bring _anyone_ in here without you heathens thinking they’re for you.” 

The hands disappear. My chest is still stinging. 

“They usually are.”

“Well not this one, he’s on special order,” Jeff says. He grabs my arm and tugs at me to follow.

I can't think. I don't want to. I want release. I want fire.

_I want to run._

_Hey._ A voice cuts into my head. I don't know why, but something tells me it's the guy with the lips and the teeth. I turn back to him. _If you ever shake your shackles, come back._ He cocks his head to the side and blows a second kiss. I feel it on my cheek. _I’m Natalie._

My tail vibrates.

I try saying my name, but nothing comes out. 

He smiles kindly and there’s something dark in his eyes. _Go on then._ He winks and slips away. 

The room comes back to me in a rush.

People are screaming. 

Different devils sit crouched over bodies, ripping at their naked flesh with talons and tusks. The dancers on their poles spin and spin until they twist into tornadoes sucking their spectators in and pulling apart their limbs. 

But the tortured are still alive, all of them.

_I can feel it._

I remember... _daggers. In me._

My wings thrash. I feel pressure in my chest, a phantom flame.

"Stop!" I shout suddenly. My face is wet. God dammit, I think I'm crying.

The room turns and looks at me.

"Simon," Jeff says. He turns me to face him. His eyes roam over me.

_I feel like I'm ending._

“You know what,” Jeff says, “we can skip this.” And then he snaps his fingers.

—

The rest of the tour takes 1,067 years.

—

Lightning strikes over the small building.

CUP O’ WOES glows dully above the entrance.

_A coffee shop?_

I turn around and look at Jeff. I've gotten used to his mask— I can tell he's grinning beneath it.

"This is it?"

"This is it."

I turn back to the store. It looks new.

"I'm working here?"

"Yep."

"Do I get paid?"

He barks a harsh laugh. I guess you don't really need money when you're dead.

Is this really my punishment? Out of all Circles of Hell we visited _this_ where I’m getting stuck? Aside from the cartoonish hellscape on the horizon, this Circle looks like a regular shopping center. I guess the Damned need small pleasures too.

Jeff tells me it's new addition or something.

_It's just coffee._ _It can't be_ that _difficult._

I spot the pastry case inside the café packed to the brim with different cakes and breads.

_It’s been an entire millennium since I’ve tasted anything other than stale air._

Yeah, I’ll take it.

"Alright then." 

Jeff slaps a hand down on my shoulder. He leans his face in next to mine. "You've never worked customer service, have you?"

I've never had a _job._ My tail flicks against the ground. I've never really been able to.

“No.”

"Yeah,” he chuckles, “the boss is a bastard." 

I frown. I guess I should’ve expected that, considering.

"Well, good luck," Jeff says.

Wait. What?

“Huh?”

He responds by shoving me towards the door.

My eyes bug.

"I'm starting _now?"_

"Well, duh." He says. "You've got customers." He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. Down the road I see a mob of demons marching towards us. I think some of 'em have pitchforks.

“But we just got here!" 

  
_"You_ just got here. And that's the job."

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://theflyingpeach.tumblr.com/)


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